The route:
First night out is a spot right by the St. Lawrence.
It rained buckets all night and all day on the ride to Venise-en-Quebec so no pics on way - the town is right on the north shore of Lake Champlain - cute town center with a public marche of little restos which were all closed due to the rain, except the ice cream stand lol so I had an iced americano.
People in the RV parks take camping seriously here.
Weather continues to be nasty - it’s now Friday and made it to Thetford Mines QC - stopped here at a cheap & cheerful roadside motel to dry myself, tent and all my damp gear.
It’s Quebec here’s a church.
Finished section of the south shore stopping at Matane QC for the ferry crossing to Godbout. Tough to stop here, as the QC-132E is a great stretch of road which runs along the shore and goes all the way round the Gaspé peninsula - a highly recommended road trip.
Took the ferry from Matane to Godbout on the north shore of the St. Lawrence. Motorcycles load first and depart first and it’s always fun to find out where everyone is coming from and going to.
Travelled a short way up the coast past Baie Trinité to an RV park with convenient on site depanneur and restaurant. Perhaps poutine.
Onwards up the QC-138. Todays mission was a place with laundry facilities (yikes!) and Camping de la Minganie fit perfectly - right on the coast and a walk to town (Longue-Pointe-de-Mingan).
This town and nearby Havre-Saint Pierre provide acess to Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve which makes up a set of islands offshore that feature stunning limestone monoliths.
Havre-Saint-Pierre is the other jumping off point for Mingan Archipeligo national park reserve - I woke up in fog this AM which cleared to a beautiful day.
Made it to the end of route 138 - the last section from Havre-Saint-Pierre is a twisty fine ride on great pavement which turns to mushy sandy gravel for the last 25 km or so. It should all be completed asphalt next year they say.
Kegashka is where I pick up the ferry along the coast up to Blanc-Sablon. For this ferry ride they load everything into shipping containers.
After Kegashka, the first stop is La Romaine at about 10:00 pm - not much to see, off to bed.
Next up at 7:45 AM was Harrington Harbour - a fishing town dating back to the late nineteenth century, settled by Newfoundland fishermen. In the 60s they got electricity and the boardwalk sections which form the streets. They filmed the movie “La Grande Séduction” here and it comes highly recommended.
Arrival about noon to the town of Tête-A-La-Baleine which lies about 8km from dock so no walk to town.
La Tabatière by 16:30. The town is having a first ever reunion and people are coming from all over the place to back home - some folks haven’t been home in 30 or 40 years. They were welcomed with a hug from a lobster.
The name Tabatière comes from the Aboriginal word tabaquen, meaning sorcerer. Innu who traded with settlers in La Tabatière usually consulted a sorcerer-soothsayer before heading on a hunting trip.
After La Tabatière, the ferry stops at St. Augustine at 9:45 PM and finally Blanc-Sablon at 6:30. The containers with the bikes were dropped in front of us and so time to hit the road to Old Fort Quebec which is the end/beginning of the road about 60 kms south west of Blanc-Sablon. We ended up with 7 bikes there and it was a good time - everyone heading in all different directions from this point.
Just west is Riviére St. Paul and the Auberge Whiteley Inn which has extremely comfortable beds.
The view the other way. Slept like the dead.
Moved to Pinware River provincial park which doesn’t have much in way of amenities but there was a big ol’ berg and whales doing whale things offshore so a nice place to spend some time. But the bugs! Oh my f g they were small, organized and nasty.
A short drive north (now on the 510N) is Red Bay, a national historic site due to the well preserved artifacts from Basque fishing in the region. The museum installation is first class - highly recommended.
Battle Harbour is a national historic site - it used to be the center of the fishing operation in Labrador but when the market collapsed in the 1950s, most of the residents moved out and the remaining buildings were preserved (there are a number of private residences here). The boat ride is an hour and ten minutes.
View from my room. Got a couple days to soak it in - more pics to follow. It’s magical here.
Battle Harbour Cinema screened The Viking (1931) an arctic adventure movie filmed at Battle Harbour and St. Johns. It’s the first fim to record dialogue on location using magnetic wire recording, and also famous as it’s still the largest loss of life on a film set when the ship headed out for some re-shoots and it blew up killing 28. The scenes of men heading over the ice floes to find seals are really well filmed.
Here’s The Loft where the fire is burning all day and the bar opens at 7pm.
Jan, who grew up in Battle Harbour during the summers, gave us a thoughtful and story filled tour of the public buildings on site - she’s pointing at her great-grandfather from a 1873 photo.
From Port Hope Simpson (just north of Mary’s Harbour) one better fill up as it’s just over 400 km of nothing until you hit Happy Valley-Goose Bay. The new highway 184 is lovely pavement and there aren’t many cars on the road, but the scenery lacks somewhat.
The Goose Bay military base started in 1941 and subsequently a town called Happy Valley (originally Refugee Cove) grew with settlers mainly from Labrador working on the air force base. The two were incorporated in 1973 into Happy Valley-Goose Bay. There are 3 Tim Horton's in town.
The town of Northwest River lies about 30 km from HVGB - the museum in town is located in the old Hudson Bay building and is worth the $3 admission, as it's chock full of electro-mechanical dioramas of life in Labrador. The artist is Elmer Lakata who continues to maintain and update the collection with new displays.
There used to be a cable car across the river which was replaced by the bridge in background.
The interpretive center is also excellent.
The ferry from HVGB to Nain takes a little over 2 days, stopping briefly in a number of communities on the coast of Labrador.
In Hopedale the RCMP arrived to show off their brand new enclosed police quad to the dockworkers - the running commentary from the 6 tourists aboard the vessel was gold.
Nain (Nunainguk) was established as a Moravian mission in 1771 - it is now the administrative capital of Nunatsiavut.
The boat up takes about 58 hours, the twin otter did it in just over an hour.
The trans-Labrador highway (500) is now fully paved and the ride west from HVGB to Labrador City was excellent - good weather, great road and nobody around (I did have to stop and give room to a black bear cub wandering off the road).
Just west of Labrador City is the border to Quebec and soon enough comes the gravel.
The first stretch of gravel is 50 kms and the second is 100 - the gravel ends at Manic-Cinq (Daniel-Johnson) power generating station with a twisty descent as the dam comes into view on the right.
The 389 highway south of Manic-Cinq to Baie-Comeau is a well paved twisty descent as it follows the Manicougan river, from there I turned right and headed west - first to Trois-Rivières and the next home to Toronto (pro-tip: do Montreal at 7:30 Sunday morn). No pics taken, so here’s a photo of the bread pudding topped with local fresh-picked berries and a homemade caramel sauce which was desert one night at Battle Harbour.